MATCHING A PATTERN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 2785, 7 March 1877, Page 3

MATCHING A PATTERN.

One of tho fascinating young men, Bays the San Francißco Post, in uptown dry goods stores is in trouble. Ifc is the custom in fche establishment from which he has just been dismissed to diecharge a man who fails to sell to one of three successive customers. "Swapping " is the technical term by which this failure is known in tho dry goods business. The rule is not universal, but it is by no means exceptional in dry goods Btores. However unjust it may be, it has a wonderfully stimulating effect on tho elegant young men amenable to it, and when they cannot sell goods it is a safe inference that the customer, is supernaturally obdurate, impecunious, or miserly. The young man referred to had "firat call " last Friday morning ; that is, the firat oußfcomer who entered the store was by the ruleß of rotation his exclusive victim. Next morning this privilege would fall to the • lot of some other clerk, and so on to the end of the list. The first customer " swapped " him and went out without investing a cent. The second was in an equally unpropitious state o.f mind, and retired without effecting a purchase. On the decision of the third hung his fate. His ample cheek blanched as she darkened the doorway, for a more unlikely purchaser could with difficulty have been found. An old striped shawl was thrown carelessly over her shoulders and partly concealed a roll of calico which the palpitatory heart of the clerk instinctively felt that she came to have matched. Now, if thero is anything in the dry goods business more soulharrowing than another it is to match goods. The exact shade and texture have to be found, and laet, but not leaßt, the price must correspond. A feeling of sickening despair permeated the heaving breast of the unfortunate clerk as he asked, " Well, ma'am ?" She laid down five yards and a half of calico of un eccentric pattern, and intimated that the success of a great dressmaking enterprise hinged on her fortune in finding another yard and a half of the same material. The eyes of six expected, clerks were upon the doomed man. Ho felt thafc tho crisis of his peril had come. With an appearanco of calmness fchat belted tho turmoil of his feelings, ho dived under the counter and handed out»endlcsß rolls of calico, varying from the radiunfc strawberry and moss rose marked to the soberest gray. But he came not within thirteen supplementary colours of tho roquired pattern. He burrowed in the cavernous depths of lower shelves, and ransacked upper ones from tho top round of a giddy step laddsr, but ho found ifc not. An hour and a half had gono by, and his stock was nearly exhausted. The proprietor of the storo and the book-keeper and porter had como out fco witness the death struggle. Six times the wearied lady started for the door, a*.d six times be colled her back and resumed hivi frenzied Bearoh. The lasfc oalico wa3 unrolled, and he was about to drop his hafc and gracefully step down and out, when a happy thought struck him. "Excuse mo, madam," said he; "there's one piece I overlooked. Lefc me see that goods;" and he fcook her bundlo, and, diving under the counte-*, hacked off a yard and a half with the energy and promptness of a rekindled hopo. | '* Here 'tis, madam ; exactly whafc you require," said he, confidently, spreading oufc th. purloined goods. She looked at ifc attentively for five minutes. "It does look liko the pattern," said she, " but still I think it's nob whafc I want. It's a good deal coarser than mino. If I can't get, anything nearer to the pattern I'll come back and take it. Good morning." She did come hack in an hour, but not, to buy tho goods. Ho triod fco dud no around the counter, bufc with fche koon-sightodnoss of womanly revenge she spotted him, and he was ignominiously hauled out and arraigned before his employer. Tho worst of ifc wus thab the lutter, in view of tho unprofitable energy shown in his attempt to effect a _ale, had concluded not to discharge him. With the evidenco of hia guilt so unmisfcakcable, however, it would be fatal to the discipline of the house to keep him, and ho was promptly dismissed. Until tho old lady succeed:! in getting a warrant for his arrest, his name is charitably suppressed.